Masters degree in maths for schoolboy aged 18

A schoolboy has completed a masters degree in mathematics at the age of 18.

Alex Thorne passed his maths GCSE when he was 11, maths A level at 12 and gained a first class degree in mathematics at 15. He did his masters degree in theoretical mathematics at Cardiff University while studying for three more A levels this summer. His research was so advanced that academics in the UK could not mark his work and a professor from Japan was called in.

Mr Thorne, below, who goes to King’s Monkton School in Cardiff, has received an unconditional offer to study for a PhD in mathematical physics at the University of Oxford. “What I go on to do in the future, at the minute I’m not